Human Trafficking Legislation

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, tomorrow morning the Senate will be casting a very important vote. We will be voting on a piece of legislation called the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, which currently has 12 Democratic cosponsors and virtually an equal number of Republican cosponsors. In other words, this is generally bipartisan legislation.

As further evidence of its bipartisan support, this bill passed unanimously out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in February, and it enjoys the support of more than 200 victims' rights and law enforcement organizations. But as everyone in this Chamber knows, Senate Democrats have said they will filibuster this bipartisan legislation that is designed to provide justice for victims of trafficking because it contains a particular provision they have voted for on a number of occasions and, indeed, have chosen to cosponsor. It is unconscionable and shameful and more than that it is just simply baffling to me.

The reason it is so shameful is because there are children waiting for our help. The average victim of human trafficking in the United States is a young girl between the age of 12 and 14 years of age. Children are being abused and literally sexually assaulted while apparently some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided to try to make a political point. It is baffling because my colleagues have voted for essentially this very same provision in one form or another time and time and time again.

Apparently, the Democratic leader, who is pressuring Members of his caucus to filibuster this bill is--well, he says we need to take out the language they object to, but I was standing on the floor just a few days ago when--I guess it was Thursday afternoon--the majority leader, Senator McConnell, offered them an opportunity to have an up-or-down vote to strip that language out of the bill and they objected to it. So it is getting harder and harder to believe the sincerity of their protests, and it is appearing more and more likely that what they want to do is have the Senate return to the same dysfunctional nature it was under for the last 4 years by the previous majority.

I wish to pose several questions to our colleagues who insist on filibustering this bipartisan piece of legislation. The first question I have is: Isn't it the case that only 3 months ago 50 Democrats voted for the 2015 Defense authorization bill? Isn't that a bill a piece of authorizing legislation much like the underlying justice for victims of trafficking bill? If 50 Democrats voted for similar language with regard to the limitations on the use of funding just a few months ago, how in the world can they filibuster this bill for including the same language they voted for, more or less, just a few short months ago? In fact, it is true that in 2009 all of the Senate Democrats--in a partisan vote--voted to include this similar language as part of ObamaCare. Groups such as NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League, protested that the language ``went far beyond even the Hyde Amendment.'' Yet 60 Democrats, including the then-majority leader--now minority leader--voted for that in the wee hours of Christmas Eve 2009.

Again, I ask our friends who are filibustering this bipartisan piece of legislation designed to help the victims of human trafficking: Isn't it true that in 2009, 58 Senate Democrats voted to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program, which like Medicaid is subject to the Hyde Amendment?

To each of those questions, the record would demonstrate they should be answered with a resounding yes.

So time and time again, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who now find themselves in the inexplicable position of filibustering a bill they are cosponsoring or which they have already voted for in the Judiciary Committee and which contains very similar restrictions on the use of the funding--how in the world have they decided to make the stand, here and now, denying even the opportunity they have been given by the majority leader to have an up-or-down vote to strip the language out that they object to?

Well, despite the hypocrisy of their position, the question this really boils down to is this. This is the question, the only question that really matters: To our colleagues who are filibustering this legislation, Are you prepared to turn your back on the thousands of people living every day in bondage and who are desperately clinging to the hope that someone--someone--will lend them a helping hand? Are you prepared to abandon these children and these other victims of human trafficking who deserve a roof over their head, someone to lean on, and somehow, some way to get a fresh start in life?

Do our colleagues who are filibustering this legislation really want to play politics with such a sensitive and vulnerable part of our population over an issue that some advocates have called a phantom problem? The reason why some advocates who support this legislation have called the objection of the Democratic leader a phantom problem is because not only have they voted for similar provisions over and over and over again, this essentially has been the settled law of the land for 39 years--since 1976. Just in case our colleagues think that the examples I mentioned are exclusive, there are a number of other provisions--32 Democrats voted for the so-called CR omnibus, the continuing resolution omnibus, in December. Thirty-two Democrats voted for that which contained very similar language. And I mentioned several others.

I want to conclude with the Washington Post editorial for today. I do not always find myself in agreement with the Washington Post editorial board, but this morning I think they encapsulated the Democratic filibuster of the bipartisan antitrafficking bill perfectly. In urging the Senate to pass this legislation, they wrote: ``[T]his week the question will be whether Senators can put the interests of scared, abused children ahead of the chance to score political points.'' I could not agree more.

So tomorrow morning, an hour after we convene, we will have a vote that will decide whether this legislation goes on to final passage. We need six brave Democrats--six brave Democrats--to join all the Republicans on this side to keep hope alive for these victims of human trafficking. We need six Democrats who are willing to break away from the tyranny of their party's own leadership here in the Senate and do what they know is the right thing to do. They know it in their heart, and they know it in their mind, and they know they have supported similar language in legislation time and time again.

We need six Democrats willing to break away from the mindless, heartless filibuster of this legislation. I hope they will examine their conscience. I hope they will ask themselves, Isn't this exactly the kind of vote that I came here to the U.S. Senate to cast? I hope they will pray on it, and I hope they will think long and hard before saying no to the abused children and the victims of human trafficking.

That is what this is all about. It is not based on any Hyde amendment language in this legislation. It is based on a determination to render this institution dysfunctional, not because of any principal policy disagreement, because, as I point out, our colleagues on the other side have voted for similar language time and time and time again.

Our colleagues on the other side realize that on November 4, the voters rejected the then-majority and gave this side of the aisle the opportunity to serve in the majority because, frankly, they were sick and tired of the way that Washington operates and the dysfunction that prevailed here for so long. I had higher hopes that after the election we would all learn something from what the voters were telling us on November 4 and thereafter and that we would take advantage of the opportunity to try to work together to find areas where we could agree, in a bipartisan way, to actually move the ball forward and help people who need our help. If we cannot do that on an antihuman trafficking bill, what can we possibly work together on?

This whole phony issue of the Hyde amendment provision in this bill is a joke. It is a sick, sad joke, after time and time again voting for similar provisions in other legislation. As I pointed out, you have 12 Democratic cosponsors of the legislation. Do you think they did not read the legislation? That is ridiculous. Do you think their staff did not tell them what was in the legislation? Do you think before the Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to pass it out people did not know what they were voting on? I do not believe that for a minute. I have too much respect for our colleagues and their professionalism to think they missed it.

Our colleagues have an important choice to make tomorrow morning. I hope they will say yes to these victims of human trafficking and no to the kind of political gamesmanship that gives this institution a bad name.

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